Jimi makes a very good point there. Since you've titled this as "Ideal Set Up" its probably worth noting that if you have the patience and a bit of extra time then there are perhaps a couple of considerations that are ideal to make -prior- to settling on a tank size and shape: 1) type of fish/aquascape desired and 2) effect of tank size on ease of fishkeeping.
The first one is the one Jimi's talking about - figuring out if you want to begin with typical community freshwater tropical fish or whether you want to attempt a "species" tank or some other more unusual thing like that. Even the choices of species within a typical community tank ideally require some individual consideration with respect to tank size and other environmental issues. A typical way to approach this is to start making lists of fish you like. It helps to make notes when you visit your LFS and then to follow up here about each fish on the list.
The second pre-tank-purchase issue to cover is the fact that larger volumes of water (up to a point, lol!) are actually easier on the beginning fishkeeper than small ones are. The simple fact is that larger volumes dilute things more and give the beginner a longer period of time to recognize when there's a water problem. Those problems are often slower to happen in a larger volume too. More water is just more forgiving.
On the other hand, as you move past various break-points, say, 55 US gallons or 75 US gallons, the physical aspects get harder. The tank itself is heavier. Its filled weight is heavier. Water changes become more lengthy, etc. Everything becomes more costly. For beginners, I often think there is a bit of a "sweet spot" in the 20 to 40 US gallon range. On a hobbyist forum like TFF, many will urge the new fishkeeper to "go as large as you can" but I'd say to do it with thought. OK, so what does that mean to you? Well, it means to think hard about your 60L/16G limit you've mentioned in your post. Is there any way you could push that upward, say to 25g or 100 liters or so? This might buy you a better beginning experience in my opinion. On the other hand, that's not to scare you from the hobby, as a 16g can be great fun if that's truly all the space/money you can deal with at the moment, but think hard about it.
Meanwhile, one other thing you can be doing that goes at the overall question you've posted here is to begin reading our "Beginners Resource Center." Here you'll find things written up about startup, by Miss Wiggle and various water topics by BTT and rabbut and others and finally our "working document" on the all-important topic of Fishless Cycling, written and maintained by RDD. These readings will help give you a baseline for your questions here in your thread, and of course, read and participate in other beginner's threads as that's fun and gets you a lot of other experience.
~~waterdrop~~
/www.reef-one.com/biUbe-Pure
